Jewel in the Rough
The Abduction Team sent to apprehend Jewel, who they knew had played some part in the Coup arrived at the Cirrus Conservatory. Blažej showed the group a hidden entrance though what he called "His drop room." Dolan told Abe to wait outside to secure their exit. Once inside the group found a room filled with old, gnawed on bones and the putrid smell of rotting flesh. On one side of the room there was a fresh corpse that was infested with maggots. Blazej told everyone that he didn't like Maggots because they were disgusting. Dolan went over to the body and turned the deceased gnome's face toward Blazej so he could identify the dead individual, but Blazej didn't know who it was. Blazej revealed that all Cirrius' pets had their own towers in the conservatory and each one had a "drop room" that essentially acted as a trash chute for their experiments. The group decided to try to get to Jewel, not through her drop room, but through normal means as getting to her drop room would require them to travel through what Blazej called "The beast room." When the group pressed Blazej for answers on what was in the beast room they got nowhere and Dolan decided it would be best not to travel through it. The group turned invisible and headed up the levels of the conservatory. They reached Jewel's Lab and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. They decided to go up to her room. On their way they saw Cirrius' family of giants and their pets eating lunch. Blazej warned the group that the giants or their pets might have ways to see through invisibility, so Dolan and Dyani continued toward Jewel's room while Selena and Blazej stayed behind. Once inside, Dolan and Dyani found Jewel eating lunch on her bed while watching her three triplets. Dolan snapped his Dimeritium Shackles around her neck to cancel her magic and held a blade to her throat. Dyani took the triplets away and Dolan placed three fingers on Jewel's neck. He told her every time she lied to him he would remove a finger and she didn't want to know what would happen if he took all his fingers off. Jewel was vague with her answers but she did tell Dolan that the conspiracy was significantly larger than he had anticipated and she gave him names of people she knew were involved. Dolan asked about the dopplegangers and who they worked for. She told Dolan the dopplegangers belonged to a cloud giants referred to as "The masked giant" who was somehow associated with the cloud kingdom, but not officially a part of it. Jewel told Dolan that the next part of the Coup's plan was to increase the number of giants by using her newly perfected fertility project, and that Sslivern was preemptively taken out before the coup started because she was getting wise to what might be about to happen and that she was being held prisoner in her own drop room. Jewel also told Dolan that she didn't know who was actually behind the conspiracy. Dolan told her that he was going to take one of her children as a hostage to ensure her cooperation and that he wanted her to leak information to him about the conspiracy and its movements. She told Dolan that she didn't care what happened to her children. When Dolan heard this he knew he wouldn't be able to leverage her cooperation, so he stabbed her with his cutlass where he had applied the last use of his paralysis poison from Kozek. Jewel was stunned by the poison and Dolan used this opportunity to knock her out and take her captive. Dyani offered to wait an hour to find a way to get Jewel's children out, but Dolan snuck Blazej and Selena into the room and Blazej used Bio Bubble on the children and they were placed in the bag of holding. The group searched Jewel's room and were unable to find her fertility research but they did find her sending interception spell and took it with them. Selena then used fly and Blazej used Spider climb to get the group along the outside of the tower to Sslivern's room. The inside was covered in snakes, and was dark. The group made it to her drop room and with all their rope combined were able to get most of the way down with Dyani being the brave volunteer to go down. Sslivern's body was guarded by a giant snake and she seemed to be unresponsive. Selena went down the rope as well to help Dyani. Dyani approached the unconscious Sslivern and tried to pull her away, but the giant snake was coiled too tightly. Selena used banishment on the snake and Dyani used both the jump spell combined with her boots of springing to jump back up to the rope. Together Dyani and Selena were able to get Sslivern out of the pit and the group scaled the outside of the tower to get out. Now with not only Jewel, but her triplets and Sslivern in tow the group headed back down the mountain toward Seelie's bane where it was warmer and the air would be thicker. They reported their situation to Tarthurac via Blazej's Circlet of Conveyance.